


Chastity

by trascendenza



Category: Threshold
Genre: M/M, Personal Favorite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-08
Updated: 2007-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He's caught between warring imperatives.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Chastity

When you're fifteen and horny, almost anything seems like a good idea, which must be why he let Mark from Social Studies talk him into this bathroom.

It smells so strongly of ammonia that his eyes are watering; the soles of his sneakers stick to the floor. Even as he's squirming under Mark's warm brown eyes and large hands, in some small part of his mind, he's worrying. He worries about how warm it is in here and that he didn't put on enough deodorant this morning; he worries about how the stall locks are flimsy and anyone could come in and see them; he worries that maybe this is a mistake, or maybe it _isn't_ a mistake, or maybe, shit—

"Jesus," he shudders, one hand gripped against Mark's large shoulder and the other embedded in his thick black hair.

"Shut it, Lucas," Mark hisses, pushing him up harder against the cold plastic stall. He's brutally palming the front of Lucas's jeans, and it feels so good it hurts, and he never wants it to stop except that he can barely stay standing, and he's biting his lip so hard that it's starting to distract him, and—

"Can you believe that bitch gave me detention?" The voice cuts through his haze of pleasure, and Mark raises one finger to Lucas's lips, pressing up tighter against him.

"She's got it out for you, man."

"Yeah, well, she can suck me. I'm not going back to class."

There's the sound of a backpack unzipping and the distinct metallic clicking of a lighter flaring into life.

"Dude. You gonna share?"

"Fuckin' a, man, gimme a second."

The stall rattles behind Lucas's shoulder blades and he nearly passes out from the shock, but thankfully doesn't make a sound. Derek—he finally recognizes the voice—must have leaned against the outside.

A deep, rich odor starts filling the air and smoke filters into the stall through the wide slats of vomit-green plastic.

Lucas feels his lip start to bleed in his mouth, and looks at Mark, who's screaming with his eyes: _Not a sound, Lucas, or you're dead_.

Derek and Mark are best friends. Both on the soccer team, both dating cheerleaders, both skate on the wrong side of authority too often yet never really seem to get in trouble.

Lucas was guessing Derek doesn't know about… well, about Mark.

_Shit_.

Derek and his sycophant start discussing their plans to kill the afternoon outside of school where they won't get caught; Mark and Lucas are frozen in position. Sweat trickles down the back of Lucas's neck where Mark's fingers are pressing in an imprint, and the more he tries to breathe quietly the less he can. The smoke burns his eyes worse than the smell of piss and it's acrid in his nose and lungs. It seeps into his mouth, sickly-sweet and too pungent, tickling, prickling, itching at the inside of his throat, and his inhaler's back in the classroom—

He barely muffles a cough and by the time the coast is clear, Mark won't even look at him.

*

Lucas sees Mark making out with Shannon on five separate occasions in the hall the next day.

It doesn't give him much consolation when Mark gets detention for it.

The next week, when Mark corners him behind the bleachers and won't talk, only press his hand down Lucas's pants, he can't argue. No words can compete with the euphoric rush he gets when Mark's this close to him.

But afterward, sitting on the ground, boxers matted against his crotch, watching Mark wipe the evidence off on the metal pylons, he's not sure what to think.

"Fuck you, Pegg." Mark says, brushing off his jeans and flipping up the collar on his shirt.

He wants to be tough, say something like _I thought that's what you wanted to do_, but he just looks away. "Sorry." And that's true enough.

"I should kill you for trying to get me caught, you little bastard."

"I wasn't—"

"Whatever." Mark slips on his jacket. "This sure as fuck isn't going to happen again. I wouldn't even be here if I didn't—" He runs a hand through his hair, looking as horrible as Lucas feels.

"Sorry," Lucas says again, but Mark's already walking across the field. He doesn't look back.

*

Lucas slowly learns how to say no. It isn't as hard as adults made it out to be; all he has to do is think of that emptiness, that hollow pit in his stomach that's gaping so wide even the rush of blood to his head when, irony of ironies, Derek corners him in a bathroom at a party, won't come close to making him forget it. That's the first time he says no.

And whenever he starts to think _maybe_, Mark will glare at him or a girl will give him a strange look. He starts asking them out because anything is better than their scrutiny.

_Who doesn't want to have sex?_ Some of them ask him, chewing gum and tilting their heads to the side. He shrugs and says it's his religion, which is true enough that he doesn't feel like he's lying.

And over time it just becomes a habit. He leaves highschool unscathed by the stigma he might have otherwise faced, but also touched by little else. A year into college he can't remember the name of a single one of his ex-girlfriends.

He meets Rachel a few months before graduation. What starts as a friendship comfortably grows into more. She never asks him why he won't come into her dorm even though her roommates aren't there or why he won't party like everyone else their age does. She doesn't laugh when he says he probably wants to wait until marriage. She just smiles at him, puts her hand on top of his when he starts getting jittery, and laughs. Not at him, but to soothe him.

It works. For the first time since he was fifteen, he starts to feel a bit more at ease.

*

He doesn't think about what their honeymoon will entail with a diligence that most people reserve for work.

_I'd love to go to Italy_, she tells him, showing him books she picked up at Barnes and Noble, or she slips brochures onto his coffee table before she leaves for the night.

_Aren't you excited?_ She asks, slipping an arm through his and guiding him through aisles of linens and plates. Dates and showers and lists are made so quickly that he can hardly keep up.

And what was originally a source of comfort to him, a bedrock, _I'm going to marry Rachel and things will be all right_, starts to erode.

He can't quite utter the word "no," but every passing day he comes closer.

*

Dr. Fenway's leaning against the stall, one leg crossed over the other at his ankles, his blue labcoat rolled up to his elbows. He's espousing a theory about how the transharmonics are affecting the cellular regeneration of his mice, and his glasses are dangling from his mouth, which is remarkable, really, because all physical laws dictate that they should have dropped a long time ago.

Lucas is trying not to think about why he can't stop looking at those glasses. The way his lips are moving around the thin sliver of metal—

"Were you planning on washing them again?" Dr. Fenway suddenly asks, arching a brow at him.

"Oh, what?" He rubs his hands down the front of his thighs. He forgot that he was still holding them up under the air-dryer. "Maybe?" He picks a word out of his brain at random because the doctor is still looking at him expectantly.

"That pink soap won't wash away your elevated theta waves, Lucas," Nigel quips, but then he smiles—just a little—and Lucas is fifteen all over again.

He's caught between warring imperatives.

He can make an excuse and run back to his lab, back to electronics and equations which won't leave him flustered like this, back to a place where he's safe among numbers and hardware, where the answers make sense.

Or, maybe he could—

"Dr. Fenway, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

Nigel takes his glasses out of his mouth and starts cleaning them on his shirt. "Sure—why not? No point in denying my sordid past since you could probably hack it out of the computer, anyway."

"I would never—"

Nigel slips the glasses back on, smiling more than smirking now. "That was a joke, Lucas."

"Sorry." He crosses his arms over his chest, taking a deep breath.

He isn't even sure what he's asking until the words are out of his mouth. "Do you believe in second chances, Dr. Fenway?"

Nigel looks at him for a moment that stretches and stretches, the blue eyes behind the lenses not judging or irritated; just curious.

"For you?" He barely pauses a beat before answering. "You bet I do."


End file.
